National Weather Service Gives Miami Approximate Start Date For Rainy Season
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – For as long as anyone can remember, rainy season begins in South Florida when the typical morning or afternoon rains come just about every day.
That season lasts through the fall until the daily rains stop as winter cold fronts begin to sweep the atmosphere of its tropical moisture.
Over the decades, the National Weather Service office in Miami would attempt to specify when rainy season would begin and when it would end but this was often subjective and done after rainy season was already underway.
In recent years, a more scientific method of determining the start of rainy season was tried.
By using the dew point temperature above 70 degrees, the amount of instability in the atmosphere, the number of consecutive days with rain, a rough approximation to the start of rainy season could be made but even then, it wasn't a scientifically reliable method.
In light of that lack of a standardization to determine the start of rainy season, which could vary from late April to early June, the National Weather Service in Miami picked an approximate mean start date of the season, that being May 15th.
Likewise, they chose October 15 for the end of rainy season.
As NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Rob Molleda said as the new method was unveiled, "Hurricane season begins June 1 whether you have hurricanes before the start of the season or after it begins. It's a day that is, on average, the beginning of tropical activity in the Atlantic."
Much like the start of hurricane season, rainy season will now have an official start date, regardless of whether it begins raining before or after that day.